


still stedfast, still unchanging

by BeepGrandCherokeeper



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: (implied) - Freeform, Bottom Hank, Christmas Fluff, Established Relationship, Inspired by Poetry, M/M, Oral Sex, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 04:36:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17400140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeepGrandCherokeeper/pseuds/BeepGrandCherokeeper
Summary: “What are you doing?” Hank asks, cracking an eye open.Connor lifts himself up to push Hank’s shirt out of the way, so that it sits snugly around his ribcage. “I would have thought that was obvious.” Leaning down, he puts his lips on the edge of a tattooed flower. “If you’re amenable. Can I? I want to."Connor moves under Hank’s grasp, slowly tugging at his sweats. Hank shrugs and arches his back, giving Connor room to yank them down to mid-thigh.“Don’t have to tell me twice.”





	still stedfast, still unchanging

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheSanguineRose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSanguineRose/gifts).



> Dedicated to Morgan, sorry your Christmas present is so late! Love you lots <3

Christmas is quiet in the Anderson house.

Hank wakes up on his own after nine in the morning, grumbling to himself about the hour. Connor leaves him with a kiss on the cheek and takes Sumo for a walk, giving the big dog ample time to bound through snowbanks and chase a few lean looking squirrels. By the time they get home and Connor’s finished toweling Sumo off on the porch, Hank is freshly showered and halfway through his breakfast. The gift exchange waits until after Hank’s eaten and left his dish in the sink. He sits on the couch and gives Connor an indulgent look that says _go on_. Connor turns the tree lights on with a blink, feeling immensely proud of himself.

Last year, Hank hadn’t decorated at all, and Connor hadn’t known if he could do so in his stead. Most of Hank’s old Christmas trappings were lost in the move from his old house, and holiday cheer was on short supply so soon after the android revolution. This year is different. Hank hadn’t exactly participated in choosing the new decorations, but he let Connor pick what he wanted and didn’t complain when Connor asked for help putting it all up. He likes the tree especially, it has a few ornaments preserved from what Hank calls “the old days,” including a little handprint pressed into hardened clay and hung from a blue ribbon. That sits near the top of their tree, partially hidden by garland.

Under the tree is a modest pile of presents. Half of them are for Sumo. Hank discourages Connor from spending his salary – his _salary_ , hard-won both in the national courts and from the Detroit city government – on things that aren’t for himself, but Hank rarely objects if Connor spends money on Sumo instead. They open the gifts for Sumo, while he pants lazily and thumps his tail at some of the offerings. His favorites are the new dog bed, several squeaky toys, and a bag of pseudo-bacon treats that are supposed to be good for his teeth.

“Dumbass,” Hank says fondly as Sumo lays halfway across the bed, his back end still resting on the floor.

Connor unwraps a vintage sweater with an unfortunately loud pattern, green and black, with purple, orange, and pink stripes. He understands the concept of ugly Christmas sweaters, but although the sweater is suitably hideous, it has nothing to do with the holiday at all.

“You’ll get more use out of it that way,” Hank says. “Do you like it?

Connor pulls his worn henley off right away and replaces it with the knit monstrosity.

“I love it,” he says, and he means that. The inside of the sweater is soft, and it already smells like their laundry detergent – Hank must have washed it before he put it under the tree. He pulls the sleeve over his right hand and deactivates the skin on his thumb to better feel the way the fabric slides against his chassis.

Connor gives Hank three books wrapped together, a surprise he hopes Hank won’t mind. Connor hadn’t been able to resist the paperbacks when he’d seen them in the used bookstore, trashy serials of the sort Hank loves to read for mindless fun, but the hardback is the real present. Hank turns it over in his hands, flipping through the pages as the smell of old paper wafts faintly across the room. He checks the publication date, frowning, and looks at Connor reproachfully.

“This is a lot, Con,” he says, checking the back like he expects to find a price sticker. “This book is older than I am. By a good number of years.”

“It isn’t much, honestly.” Connor reaches out to take it from him, stroking the spine. “Markus let me have it earlier this year when I began to express interest in poetry. It’s from Carl’s library.”

Hank snorts. “Oh, that tracks. I’m sure it’s worth a fortune, then.”

“Is it?” Connor asks, handing it back. “I wasn’t thinking about its monetary value. I just… wanted you to have it.”

“I know.” Hank pulls Connor in for a quick kiss by the back of his neck. “I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful or anything. I like Keats as much as the next guy.”

“Do you?”

“Sure. ‘Bright star, would I were’ something, something. I memorized it in college.”

Connor hums and leans in to kiss him again, murmuring against his lips. “‘Steadfast as thou art.’”

Hank grins. “Guess I’ll have to practice some more.”

Hank cleans up the wrapping paper while Connor returns to the kitchen to handle the dishes. Hank takes the discarded henley, too, disappearing into the garage to throw it in with the other dirty laundry. The new paperback books go on the shelf, but the poetry book stays in Hank’s hands. He flips through it again, sitting at the kitchen table while Connor meticulously scrubs the pan he’d used to fry the eggs.

“He was good,” Hank mutters. When Connor turns around with a raised eyebrow, he holds up the book.

“You should be wearing your reading glasses,” Connor says, going back to the sink. Hank sighs, so quietly he must not think Connor will hear it. Connor rolls his eyes. “You’ll give yourself a headache.”

“I’m not going to read the whole thing right now. I was skimming. Refreshing my memory.”

Connor wipes the pan with a cloth and inspects it carefully. Once he deems it clean and dry, it goes back in the cabinet. Throwing the cloth over his shoulder, he leans against the counter and crosses his arms.

“I’d love to talk about it with you,” he says. “Markus has his opinions, but subjectivity seems to be part of the poetry experience. And a human’s understanding of Keats’s work would likely be different from ours. After,” he adds, “you put your reading glasses on. They’re on your nightstand.”

“Fine,” Hank groans, getting to his feet. “I was thinking about a nap anyway.”

“It’s not even noon.”

“It’s Christmas.” Hank steps in close, his blue eyes twinkling with good humor. It’s a good look on him. “You’re gonna deny an old man his nap on Christmas?”

Connor reaches out blindly to wrap his hand around Hank’s, grabbing the one still holding the book by accident. He has a finger stuck between the pages, marking his place. “You’re not old,” he says, gently. “And I’ve found I can rarely deny you anything.”

“We both know that’s not true,” Hank laughs, but he kisses him anyway – lightly, on the forehead. Connor closes his eyes so he can focus on the sensation, warm lips against his skin, a puff of breath ruffling his hair. He nearly misses the quick movement that alerts him to Hank’s free hand darting around behind him. “See you in a bit, Con,” Hank says, and before Connor can stop him, he swats Connor’s ass with a surprisingly loud _thwack_.

Hank shakes his hand as he walks away, to fend off the sting that comes from slapping a solid surface with very little give. Connor smirks, but otherwise pretends he doesn’t notice.

Connor entertains himself for the next hour in a variety of ways. He plays with Sumo for a while, mostly tug-of-war with the dog’s favorite rope toy. When Sumo’s tired of pitting his strength against Connor’s, he lumbers up onto the couch and drops his head in Connor’s lap. They watch part of a movie together, the very end and very beginning of a classic Christmas movie that’s running on loop all day. Connor makes quiet comments about it to Sumo, asking him questions and pointing out inconsistencies.

“A weapon is absolutely not an appropriate gift for a child,” Connor says, running his fingers over the smooth silk of Sumo’s ear. “Have cultural mores really changed so much in the last fifty years?”

Sumo grumbles like he understands, and then he closes his eyes and falls asleep.

Connor sits a while longer before he gently puts a hand under Sumo’s chin and slides out beneath the dog’s weight, leaving Sumo to drool and snore into the couch cushion. He goes into the garage to switch out the laundry, folds the towels that just came out of the dryer, and places them in a free-standing cabinet in the bathroom. Glancing at himself in the mirror as he passes, he tucks a few stray hairs back into place. The sweater looks nice, purposefully oversized and in colors that still compliment him, despite their garish arrangement. It makes him feel warm, loved, thinking of Hank purchasing it especially for him.

Hank.

Wandering into the bedroom, as if without a purpose, Connor noiselessly pushes the door closed behind him. He’d expected to find Hank asleep, of course, but Connor’s still surprised to see Hank sleeping propped up, with the hardback open on his chest. The pages curl against him slightly from where it’s slipped out of his hand, in slight danger of being bent. His glasses sit on the edge of his nose, slightly askew.

Connor doesn’t have a heart, in a literal sense. He has his Thirium pump, and the regulator, which perform the typical functions of the human organ and a very fancy pacemaker respectively. Neither of them is his emotional center. Of course, the heart isn’t the human emotional center, either, but it’s very difficult to shake off an entire human history of associating deep feelings with an ache in the chest, with the anatomically incorrect shape Hank sometimes leaves on post-it notes for Connor to find.

It doesn’t matter, though. None of that does.

Connor watches Hank’s chest rise and fall, and he feels his heart melt.

“Hank,” he whispers, shuffling over the carpet to Hank’s side of the bed. He takes hold of the book by the top of its spine, gently pulling it from his lax grip. There’s no permanent harm done. Smoothing out a small fold at one corner of a page, Connor closes it and turns to set it on top of the chest nearby, out of the way. “Hank,” he says again, louder.

Hank makes a strange, mumbling sound, fingers tightening where they rest on his shirt.

Laughing gently, a soft exhale blown into the space between them, Connor takes hold of the comforter draped over Hank’s legs and pulls it up.

Hank’s eyes fly open and narrow to a squint as Connor settles himself, stretched out along the length of Hank’s body. Under Connor’s chin, where he’s placed it at the base of Hank’s sternum, he feels Hank’s heart do a little jump.

“Jesus,” Hank murmurs, even as he relaxes back into his pile of pillows. “Don’t scare me like that.”

“I said your name,” Connor protests, turning so his cheek rests against the swell of Hank’s stomach. “Twice.”

Hank wraps his arms around Connor’s shoulders, a few fingers ducking beneath the collar of his sweater to rest against his skin. Hank is warm – hot, almost, compared to the way Connor’s dropped a few degrees from the chill their churning radiators can’t quite eradicate.

“Can’t complain, I guess,” he says. “Least you didn’t hit me this time.”

“That only happened the once.”

Hank grumbles. He swipes his fingers along where Connor’s trapezius muscle would be, back and forth, and slowly relaxes like he’s going to fall asleep again.

“You slept in your glasses,” Connor says.

“So?”

“You’ll bend them.”

With one hand, Connor reaches up to touch his cheek under the wire frames, still crooked where they sit on Hank’s nose. Hank snorts at him, like he’s annoyed, but he lets Connor gently lift them and fold the arms. He holds them for a moment, considering, and sets them down in his place on the bed, tucked just under the pillow. Hank touches Connor’s face, thick fingers bracketing Connor’s ear and branching slightly into his hair.

Turning his head, Connor presses his lips into Hank’s palm. “I love you,” he says.

Hank wrinkles his nose. “What’s that for?”

Shrugging, Connor kisses his palm again, then his wrist. He feels Hank’s heartbeat faintly beneath his lips, back to normal now. “Nothing. Do I need a reason?”

Hank makes a noise that distinctly sounds like a _harrumph_ from deep in his chest and closes his eyes.

“Eloquent,” Connor says. He moves back to Hank’s hand and kisses his palm, his index finger, scraping his teeth against the pad. Thankfully, Hank seems to finally clue in.

“What are you doing?” he asks, cracking an eye open.

Connor lifts himself up to push Hank’s shirt out of the way, so that it sits snugly around his ribcage. “I would have thought that was obvious.” Leaning down, he puts his lips on the edge of a tattooed flower. “If you’re amenable.”

“Amenable.” Hank heaves a gusty sigh, his stomach shifting under Connor’s weight. Connor kisses that next, running his tongue on the edge of an old scar. Hank’s skin jumps. “Con…”

“Can I?”

“I’m not…” Hank pauses as Connor tucks his fingers into the waistband of his sweats, threatening to drag them down. One of his hands flies to Connor’s, covering it easily with his own. “I’m not objecting, but, are you sure?”

“I want to.”

Connor moves under Hank’s grasp, slowly tugging at the sweats. Hank shrugs and arches his back, giving Connor room to yank them down to mid-thigh.

“Don’t have to tell me twice.”

Hank’s cock, twitching with interest, goes ignored – at least temporarily. Connor kisses a series of stretch marks striping the skin between Hank’s hip and his second tattoo, faded green poking up beneath the grey pants. He bites the juncture of Hank’s pelvis and thigh, grinning when Hank groans and reaches down.

“Honey,” Hank says, mussing his hair, “you’re teasing.”

Connor doesn’t respond. Biting a little harder, just sharp enough that his teeth leave faint indents behind, he skims his fingers around the base of Hank’s cock. Hank’s hand falls limply to the mattress, tangling in the sheets.

Connor’s throat wasn’t designed to fit anything inside it, much less human genitalia. It has a stopping point several inches back. Hank doesn’t complain, but the sensitive head of his cock scraping against wires and tubing is something to be avoided rather than encouraged. They compensate in other ways, with the pads of Connor’s clean white fingers – more silicone than hard plastic, to simulate a human touch – or his tongue, coated in synthetic saliva. He’d had to learn how to develop that himself, tinkering with his own insides in the bathroom mirror while Hank hovered in the hallway and worried. It isn’t the same. Nothing about him is the same as any human. But it’s good, for both of them, and that’s all that really matters.

He spits into his hand, taking note of the way Hank twitches again, and slicks Hank’s cock with a few efficient strokes. Putting his tongue to the base, he trails all the way back up to the head. His eyes never leave Hank’s, waiting to catalogue his every reaction. There isn’t much, at first, besides quickening breath and a gentle tremble in Hank’s jaw that he clenches his teeth to hide. A little displeased, Connor opens his mouth to swallow the head entirely, sucking the first beads of precum down. Data threatens to overwhelm him, a hundred chemical compounds and _Anderson, Henry_ diagnostic statistics, but he dismisses it all. Instead, he watches Hank bite the inside of his lip, and feels the rumble of his moan pass right into Connor’s chassis. It shakes him like an earthquake.

Connor sinks a little further down, rubbing his tongue along the underside to trace a vein. To make up the difference, he takes firm hold of everything that can’t fit in his mouth, stroking so that his lips meet his knuckles in a slow rhythm. Hank scrabbles at the sheets again, his other hand palming at his own chest.

“What do you want?” Connor asks, throwing his voice so he doesn’t have to pull off Hank’s cock to speak. Under the wrong circumstances, Hank calls this particular trick disturbing, but he doesn’t seem to mind it now. His hips jerk, driving a little deeper into Connor’s throat. He’s getting too close to Connor’s limit, but Connor wants more – he always wants more. Maybe it would be worth looking into more official modifications. “Tell me,” he says, hollowing his cheeks, “tell me what you want, Hank.”

Hank laughs, breathlessly, feeling a wandering path down his own body until he finds Connor’s hair again. He doesn’t tug, just holds on so his hand bobs up and down, along for the ride. “Like I’m supposed to ask for… fuck, Christ, for something that’s not this. This… is already a lot.”

Connor takes his mouth away, but not for long. He holds Hank’s cock in place for another languid lick, putting his tongue where he couldn’t reach before, and shifts his weight so that his left hand is free.

“Ask for anything,” he whispers, palming Hank’s balls as he sucks a sloppy kiss at the base.

Hank’s head falls back. His fingers clench.

“Anything you want. There’s nothing I wouldn’t give you.”

He reaches over Hank’s quivering thighs to grab for Hank’s hand, still fisted into the sheet, his knuckles going white. When Hank feels his touch, he blindly tries to thread their fingers together. His fumbling makes Connor’s engagement ring clack audibly against the plastic where it sits, twisted slightly out of place.

“You,” Hank moans. The sound crescendos when Connor sucks Hank’s cock back into his mouth, pulling hard at the tip. “I won’t – Connor, I–”

Connor wastes several precious seconds trying to decide what to do next, how best to bring Hank home. His LED must spin in the meanwhile – Hank watches him with an unbearable fondness, the light distantly reflected in his blue, blue, blue eyes. When Connor takes his hand back, pushing the ring where it belongs with a thumb, Hank lets him go.

“Up,” Connor says, a demand rather than a request.

Hank moves without protest, dragging his feet further up the bed. “Pants off?”

“No.”

Connor shifts so he’s kneeling on Hank’s right side at an angle, pushing his thigh a little higher. Popping one finger in his mouth, Connor boosts his saliva production and gives it a cursory suck, drooling on himself a little in the process. Hank’s pupils are blown wide, a light sheen of sweat on his forehead while he waits. He keeps his hands where they fell.

“You’re not gonna get much out of me with that,” Hank pants. “Too wound up to go in for it.”

“I know.” Connor settles himself on the bed again, kissing his way around the edge of Hank’s hip until he finds his mark. “It’s just for you.”

He works into Hank’s ass up to the second knuckle, just dipping in to feel the heat, press lightly against the walls of muscle around him. The first time he pulls out to skirt around the rim, he takes Hank’s cock in his throat as far back as it can go, leaving a scant few centimeters worth of space before it bumps.

Hank doesn’t howl, or bellow, or squeal. He grunts, mostly, and this one is bone-deep and shaky. His eyes screw up with the force of it.

“Oh, _fuck_!”

Connor isn’t supposed to swallow. He can’t, really, by textbook definition. Anything he ingests beyond a certain limit overflows his analysis tank and ends up somewhere in his system, and expunging that is never a pleasant task. Still, he hates the idea of letting Hank’s semen drip back out of his mouth – the mess and Hank’s mild disgust aren’t worth it.

He makes his decision just as his mouth fills with come. Connor swallows it all.

 _Acid_ , a helpful popup tells him, obscuring his view of Hank as he breathes heavily. The text continues to unspool: _acid, enzymes, fructose, potassium, sodium_.

Hank.

Connor disables all but the most essential alerts, uninterested in anything else his body has to say for at least the next hour.

Hank hisses when Connor removes his mouth and finger, moving slowly both for the sake of Hank’s comfort and to tease, a little. Pridefully, Connor notes the lack of mess left behind before he tugs Hank’s sweatpants back into place.

“Was that all right?” he asks, climbing back into place on top of Hank’s body. “Did you enjoy it?”

Hank swats Connor’s flank weakly. “Fishing for compliments,” he says, accusatorily. Connor beams – it’s true. “You know it was all right. Better’n than all right. Could have lasted longer, but that’s my fault, not yours.”

Connor lays his head against Hank’s chest, his ear resting in the best place to hear his heartbeat. “You were perfect.”

They lay there a while longer, the angle of light rays peeking between the blinds on the window slowly changing. Neither of them speaks, content to let the day slip by, until Hank passes a finger over Connor’s temple.

“‘Bright star,’” Hank says, gently running his fingernail along the edge of the LED, following the curve, “‘would I were steadfast as thou art.’”

Connor considers finishing the verse – he knows all the words – but instead he cranes his neck to kiss Hank. They can talk about poetry later.

**Author's Note:**

>  _No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,  
>  Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,   
> To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,   
> Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,   
> Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,   
> And so live ever—or else swoon to death._  
> -John Keats


End file.
